


Profound

by BleedingInk



Category: Supernatural
Genre: AO3 FB Challenge, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angels, Canon-Typical Violence, Demons, F/M, M/M, One-Sided Attraction, Pining, Season/Series 06, Soulless Dean Winchester
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-06
Updated: 2018-07-06
Packaged: 2019-06-06 11:28:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15193805
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BleedingInk/pseuds/BleedingInk
Summary: Two years ago, Gabriel rescued Sam from Hell and helped him and Dean stop the Apocalypse. Now that the dust has settled, it's a brave new world and there's a lot more going on in Heaven and Hell than they can imagine.





	Profound

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for a challenge, in which I was supposed to write a Non-Shipping Ship in a Canon Divergence setting. I usually don't write Sabriel and I don't plan to continue this story, so if you suscribe to my account based on this fic, you're going to be disappointed.
> 
> That said, I hope you enjoy it!

_“Who are you?”_

_“I’m the one who raised your fat ass from the Pit. You’re welcome.”_

_“You’re lying.”_

_The short blond man sighed and turned to him._

_“Listen to me, I don’t need this right now,” he huffed. “I was chilling here on Earth for millennia, just avoiding everything that had to do with Heaven and Hell and their messes and suddenly, they call me up and tell me you were dumb enough to trade your soul for Dean’s and that I had to go drag you out of there. So… here we are.”_

_Sam still held Ruby’s knife up, even though it had already proven to be useless. He looked at Bobby’s unconscious body on the floor and then back up at the other man._

_“You’re not a Trickster,” he said. “I mean, you’re not just a Trickster.”_

_“No.”_

_“So, what are you?”_

_The short man cracked a smirk and took a step backwards. The air in the barn became thinner and lighter, like right before a storm. A lighting flashed outside, and right before the thunder came roaring, Sam saw them: the shadow of three pairs of wings, spreading wide against the wall, springing from the back of the short man._

_The disappeared just as suddenly as they had come._

_“They call me Gabriel,” the man said, simply._

_Sam was too stunned to answer for a long moment._

_“You… you’re an angel,” he muttered, solemnly._

_“Archangel, thank you very much,” Gabriel corrected him. “You seem shocked, Sammy.”_

_“You’re not supposed to be real,” Sam said. “How…? Why did you rescue me from Hell?”_

_“Well, it wasn’t your time, you still have to serve a greater purpose, yadda, yadda.” Gabriel made a dismissing gesture with his hand. “Don’t worry your pretty little head with it. Someone up there likes you, Sam Winchester. So if I were you, I’d stop asking dumb questions and just be grateful right now.”_

 

* * *

Sam woke up startled. He’d been dreaming of a night three years prior, the night he’d found out who Gabriel really was. It seemed like a lifetime ago…

He rubbed his eyes and looked up. Dean was sitting in the motel room’s old desk, his back hunched over the computer. It was as if he hadn’t moved an inch since Sam had gone to sleep… four hours ago, Sam confirmed after looking at the watch.

“Hey,” he muttered, rubbing his eyes. “Did you sleep?”

“I caffeinated,” Dean said simply. “So I’ve been looking into the deaths. We have locusts, one guy turning into a puddle of blood and the other suffocating in boils, right?”

“Yes.” Sam blinked several times, still trying to wipe the sleep from his eyes. “What of it?”

“I think I’ve found what it is,” Dean declared and turned the computer over so Sam could see the screen: it was a page talking about the plagues of Egypt, with a very gruesome illustration of dead cows and a river of blood.

“Really?” Sam asked, crooking an eyebrow.

“It’s the only thing that fits.”

Sam pinched the bridge of his nose and yawned. He needed to wash his face and maybe have some breakfast before he could really understand what Dean was telling him.

“So we’re dealing with a biblical thing, right?” he said. “Maybe we should call Gabriel over this.”

Dean’s eyes darted at his face.

“For real?” he asked. “You wound me, little brother. You think I didn’t try that?”

“What do you mean?”

Dean scoffed and stood up from his chair. Sam had noticed the change in him since he’d come back. He was more impatient, he acted more rashly. Sam attributed it to him still being shaken by what’d happened in the cage and by the fact he had been hunting solo for a year. He wanted to ask, but knowing Dean, he was sure he would get nothing but a negative that anything was out of the ordinary.

Dean finally managed to control himself and leaned against the wall.

“I called Gabriel over and over as soon as I realized I was back topside,” he explained. “Son of a bitch never even bothered to answer the phone.”

Sam shrugged. Maybe because the dream was still fresh on his mind, or maybe because he had been itching to discuss Dean’s return with someone who could give him a different perspective, but he had been thinking of Gabriel a lot lately. He hadn’t tried to pray with him yet, but this seem like an adequate excuse to get him there.

“Well, doesn’t hurt to try once more.”

“I’m telling you, it’s not going to work,” Dean insisted as Sam bowed his head. “Wherever the guy is, we’re not his problem anymore.”

Sam ignored him.

“Gabriel, if you’re listening to us, please come here. We need your help with something.”

A few seconds of quietness passed.

“I told you,” Dean said. “He never cared much for us to begin with and now…”

“You wound me, Dean-O. Maybe if you had asked nicer, I would have come for you.”

Both brothers startled as they turned around. Gabriel was on the chair that had been empty a moment before, his legs crossed over the table.

“Heya, Sam. What are you doing back out here? I thought you were playing house with pretty little Sarah,” Gabriel commented, tilting his head.

Sam bit the inside of his cheek. Yes, Gabriel sometimes was abrasive and he went to lengths Sam didn’t approve of. But when the push had come to shove, he had been on their side. And that’s why he considered him a friend and he was happy to see him.

Dean, on his side, looked angrier than before.

“Really?” he asked. “Really? I prayed to you over and over and you couldn’t be bothered to show up! He calls you once and it’s ‘ _Heya_ ’?”

“Well, sorry to be the one to break it to you, but I do like your brother better,” Gabriel said, with a shrug. “He’s taller and better looking and he says ‘ _please_ ’.”

“Can we please… focus?” Sam interrupted the two of them.

Dean clenched his jaw and took a couple paces away from Gabriel, almost as if he needed to calm himself before he hit him. Even though Dean knew better than anyone than trying to hit an archangel was not the soundest idea.

Sam tried to not to think about the way his brother wasn’t acting like himself and turned back to Gabriel.

“We called you because…”

“I know,” Gabriel interrupted him before he could go on. He took his legs off the table and stood up. “You’ve got a case of the plagues and you figured it would be right up my alley. Well, you weren’t wrong.”

“How come?” Dean asked.

Gabriel paced around the room and then stood still. Incredibly still. Of all the angels Sam had met in the last couple of years, Gabriel was the one who had more human mannerism in his speech and demeanor. The other angels always stood a little too rigid, their chins raised a little too high. Like soldiers expecting an order.

Not Gabriel, though. Even if his vessel was that of a shorter man, every once in a while he stood in a way that reminded them that he was a Prince of Heaven.

“Well, you see, upstairs’ kind of a hot mess right now,” he told the brothers. “Has been since you two boys threw dear old Mikey and Luci into the Cage. Not that I’m not grateful,” he added, quickly. “But we’re undergoing some severe changes under the new management, and well… things get lost in the confusion.”

“Explain.”

“Someone broke into the armory and took a bunch of valuable items. The Staff of Moses was among them.”

“So you think that’s what’s causing what we’re seeing here?”

“Oh, Sam. At least you’re pretty,” Gabriel sighed. “I don’t think so. I know so. It’s not being used to its full capacity, though, lest the streets would be littered by corpses of cattle and firstborns. But it’s definitely the Staff.”

“So who are we looking into? Moses?” Dean suggested.

Gabriel shot him an exasperated look.

“Doubtful. I know who the thief is, though,” he added. “A black-eyed demon who used to work for Lucifer. We initially took her in for interrogation and we were going to give her back, but the new King of Hell said, and I quote ‘Let her rot’. So we programmed her execution… but she killed her guard, stole the goods and ran before we could stop her.”

“Frisky chick. I like her,” Dean commented.

Sam tried not to huff too loudly.

“So we find her, we find the Staff and the rest of the weapons?”

“Or the other way around.” Gabriel shrugged. “Either way, I need to find her.”

Sam stopped for a moment to stare at Gabriel. The archangel didn’t use to care this much about people’s fate or whatever was going on in Heaven. During the first year after he’d rescued Sam from Hell, Gabriel had been very much ready for the Apocalypse to happen and end it all. That had changed, of course, and Gabriel ended up helping him and Dean stop Lucifer and Michael from ripping the world apart.

But it was a change that Sam didn’t quite understand and to be honest, he’d never wanted to question it too much. He had the feeling doing so would be insulting to Gabriel somehow.

“Great. So we know what we’re looking for and we also know where to start looking,” he said, walking towards the wall where he and Dean had pinned the information the needed to keep in mind about the case. “All the victims were business men who had some sort of partnership with one another. Whoever is benefiting from their deaths…”

“That person is probably the proud owner of a shiny new Staff,” Dean concluded, with a nod. He walked towards the chair and grabbed his jacket. “Let’s get on it, then.”

 

* * *

 

_“Why are you doing this? You fought so hard to escape them, why are you helping them now?”_

_The look in Gabriel’s golden eyes was almost painful to watch. He didn’t look like an archangel, standing in the middle of Bobby’s scrapyard, his shoulders slumped and his jaw tightly clenched. He looked like a man who had been beaten and restrained, a man who had given up. And the words that came out of his mouth next confirmed that impression to Sam:_

_“I want it to end!” he shouted. “What you call the Apocalypse? I call a Sunday dinner. I can’t stand the thought of watching my brothers turn on each other and tear each other apart! That’s why I left in the first place. But I guess there’s just not stopping it now, so why even bother to try?” He shook his head. “I don’t care who wins anymore, Sam. I just want it to be over.”_

_Sam was stunned into silence for a moment. He had known Gabriel for years and this was the first time he saw him. Really saw him, without the wisecracking, without the disguises, without the scheming. It wasn’t a pretty picture. Sam could have never imagined there was so much desperation hiding behind those eyes._

_“Gabe,” he said, taking a step closer to him. “It doesn’t have to be like that.”_

_Gabriel let out a strangled, skeptical laugh. Sam continued coming closer to him, undeterred._

_“I don’t know if we can stop it,” he admitted. “I don’t know if we can find a way to return Lucifer to the Cage. But I know it’s worth trying. I know there are things in this Earth that are worth saving.”_

_Gabriel still refused to look at him directly. Sam stood so close to him now that he could feel the heat radiating from the archangel’s body._

_“Please, believe me, Gabe. We can’t win this war without you.” Sam sighed. “But we’re going to try either way.”_

_That finally got Gabriel to lift his eyes up at him. For a long time, the Archangel said nothing. Then slowly, like the sun rising in the horizon, a soft smile appeared in his lips._

_“You’re as stubborn as you’re pretty, huh?” he commented. He rubbed the back of his head. “I believe you. Dad help me, I believe you.”_

_“So you will help us?” Sam insisted._

_“I can’t reopen the Cage if that’s what you’re asking, Sam,” Gabriel said. He made a pause and then he added: “But I know of a way you might.”_

 

* * *

 

Gabriel didn’t have to care for things as tooth cavities and clogged arteries. That didn’t mean the way he spread his sweets over the car’s dashboard and started unwrapping one after the other and shoving them in his face was healthy or cute.

“I gotta give it to you,” he said between bites of a chocolate bar that seemed too big for any one person to eat. “I’m glad you convinced me to save the world. If the Apocalypse had happened, we wouldn’t have had any more refined sugar.”

“You’re welcome,” Sam said, watching him closely. It made sense that Gabriel would focus on something selfish and insignificant like that.

It was everything else that didn’t make sense.

“Okay, spit it out,” Gabriel said, rolling his eyes.

“Spit what out?”

“You’ve been thinking, Sammy,” Gabriel said, stretching a hand to touch the furrow between Sam’s eyebrows. “So whatever is it that you want to say, spit it out already.”

Sam tapped his fingers on the wheel, thinking of the best way for him to say what he was thinking.

“It… it seems out of character for you,” he concluded. “That you would care about this demon and the stolen weapons. Earlier you said ‘we’ when you talk about programming her execution.”

“What’s your point?” Gabriel asked, crooking an eyebrow.

“Are you… Heaven’s new management?”

Gabriel finished his chocolate and wiped his mouth whit his sleeve. He took a few seconds before he answered.

“I’m… part of it, yes,” he admitted in the end. “I’m helping Raphael get things back in order. We didn’t plan for… you know, not dying in a never-ending war against Lucifer and his demons. But now, here we are and we have to keep the lights on. And Raphie, Dad bless him, he’s smart but he’s not the most imaginative or flexible angel. He was freaking out about having to make treaties with the new King of Hell and all that stuff. I told him: _‘Raph, it’s a brave new world. Better get used to it’_.”

He chuckled, as if he was remembering Raphael’s face and it was the funniest thing and unwrapped another chocolate. Sam kept staring at him, still not quite sure he believed it. Gabriel, who had spent millennia running away from other angels, who had hidden behind the moniker of the Trickster, who had until the last second doubted they could win, was now talking happily about the work he was doing in Heaven.

The Gabriel he had first known would have hated all of that.

“What changed?” Sam asked.

Gabriel chewed on his chocolate, pensive.

“You.”

Sam stared at him, taken aback. He opened his mouth and closed it again, unable to find any words to reply to that.

Gabriel quickly looked away.

“I mean, you and your brother,” he clarified. “You two changed everything. You changed me.” He made a pause. “I used to be so angry and blame everyone for the way things were going to end: Dad, my brothers… and then I met you and I realized sometimes the only way for things to be better is pulling up your sleeves, picking up the slack and doing something yourself. You know, be the change you want to see and tend to your garden and all that crap.”

“That’s… incredibly mature of you, Gabe.”

Gabriel laughed once again and continued munching on his chocolate. Sam watched him in silence for a few seconds.

“Are you happy?”

Gabriel stopped eating and slowly turned to look at him.

“What kind of question is that?”

“It’s a just a question.” Sam asked. “You used to… not like talking about Heaven at all. You used to hate being reminded of what you are.”

Gabriel slowly put down his chocolate.

“I mean, yeah,” he admitted. “But you can only run away from who you are for so long, you know? And I am an archangel. I helped you stop the Apocalypse. It wouldn’t be fair if I didn’t deal with the consequences of what I did.”

Sam also had no way of answering that, so instead, he looked outside the window for a second. He wasn’t used to this serious, mature version of Gabriel and he wasn’t sure what to make of it.

“What about you, Sammy?”

“What about me?”

“Are _you_ happy playing house with Sarah?” Gabriel asked.

Sam shifted in his set, uncomfortable.

“Of course I’m happy,” he stated. “I have a normal life, a good job. It’s what I always wanted.”

Gabriel tilted his head and even before he spoke, Sam was sure that he didn’t believe him.

“Yeah? Then when did you jump back on the fray as soon as dear old big bro showed up on your doorstep?”

Sam decided not to address that question and instead decided to ask something that had been bothering him.

“He wasn’t supposed to be back,” he said. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy to see him again and be with him again, but how did he get out of Cage? He’s been… different. I know him, I’ve been looking up to him my entire life and something is off.”

“Well, he spent a little while locked up with Luci and Mikey while they were in a bad mood,” Gabriel said with a grimace. “I can't imagine that being fun for anybody.”

“No, it’s more than that. I can’t put my finger on it,” Sam insisted. “But he’s not the same, Gabriel.”

Gabriel didn’t tell him he was imagining things. He didn’t say Sam was wrong or just worried or stressed out because of these recent developments. He simply nodded.

“Do you want me to put the word out?” he offered. “Do a little digging, see what I can find out about Dean-o’s second coming?”

“Would you do that?”

“Sure,” Gabriel replied. “What are friends for?”

It was such a relief, not to have his concerns dismissed or belittled. Dean, of course, denied that anything was wrong and Sarah was great, but there were things Sam couldn’t share or explain to her. It was so great that Gabriel would just listen to him, without judging, without telling him he was paranoid.

Sam opened his mouth to thank him, but there was a knock on the window, interrupting their conversation. Dean glared at Gabriel, who rolled his eyes and disappeared in a blink only to reappear with all his chocolates in the backseat. Sam supposed getting out of the car and walking around it was far too much work for him.

“What did you find?” he asked, as Dean got in the car and started loosening his tie.

“Bunch of tax stuff I don’t even want to begin understand,” Dean huffed. He searched for his pocket and took out a piece of paper. “But there is a guy who is benefiting from all the deaths: with the other partners gone, he becomes the biggest fish in the tank and the de facto CEO. Might be our Moses wannabe.”

“Talk about a hostile takeover,” Gabriel joked.

And despite the circumstances, Sam couldn’t hold back a laugh.

 

* * *

 

Mr. Travis Hawkins lived in a very impressive mansion uptown, exactly the kind of place that Sam imagined when the words “CEO” and “business” were brought up, complete with a gate and cameras. It was lucky they had Gabriel with them: he easily deactivated all the cameras and blinked them inside the very impressive garden. They crouched behind the bushes and watched the darkened windows closely.

After a few seconds, a light appeared in the second floor. Both Sam and Dean lifted their binoculars. The room was a home office, apparently: Travis Hawkins, a man in his late forties or early fifties, sat behind his desk and typed away in his computer. He looked completely ordinary: bald, a little chubby. Nothing that would make anyone suspect he had murdered three people with supernatural means.

“You sure this is our guy?” Sam asked.

Dean glared at him.

“Let’s just get inside, tie him up and search the place.”

“What? No!” Sam said. “Dean, we can’t do that! What if you’re wrong?”

“I’m not wrong. He’s our guy!” Dean insisted. “I know it.”

“You can’t just ‘know it’, Dean. We need a little more evidence…”

“Hey, pretty boys. Shut your cakeholes,” Gabriel interrupted their bickering. “Something’s happening.”

Sam raised his binoculars again to see what he meant. The lights in the home office blinked a couple of times. Mr. Hawkins raised his head, but he didn’t looked surprised or scared. After the second blink, a woman showed up in the room. She hadn’t walked in through the door. She was petite and brunette and walked towards the desk with incredible confidence, as if she owned the place.

They knew instantly who she was.

“Well, that ain’t Mrs. Hawkins, that’s for sure,” Gabriel commented.

Sam and Dean exchanged a look. After the Apocalypse was over, they hadn’t expected to see her again.

“Meg.”

Gabriel silently teleported them to the inside of the house. As always, Sam had to take a moment to readjust to the new setting. The hallway was dimly lit, but even in that light, he could see the floor was covered with an expensive burgundy carpet and the walls were adorned with pictures that might have been very expensive, but that Sarah would’ve complained were actually tacky.

“… I think you’ve had enough time to test it,” said Meg. Her voice still sounded like a raspy whisper. “So it’s time you make up your mind, Travis, or I move on to the next interested party on my list.”

The three exchanged a look and a nod. Dean took out his gun, Sam took out Ruby’s knife and Gabriel let his blade slid from inside his sleeve.

“Listen, sweetheart, I got to admit the results were very good,” Mr. Hawkins replied. “But I’m not sure I need it anymore. I don’t know if the trade-off will be fair…”

“Oh, you don’t, do you?” Meg’s voice was filled with sarcasm. “Do you think no one will come snooping around? Asking awkward questions as to how come all your partners conveniently died in the same week?”

There was a pause.

“The police won’t know,” Mr. Hawkins said, though his voice didn’t sound as confident as it had before. “They can’t possibly put two and two together…”

“I’m not talking about the police, you moron,” Meg replied. “There are others. I’m real, remember? Don’t you ever wonder what else is real?”

There was another long pause.

“Last chance, Travis,” Meg taunted him. “Going one…”

They'd heard enough.

Dean kicked the door open and charged inside with his gun held high. The shot echoed in the room, throwing Meg backwards against the shelf. Travis Hawkins startled and fell backwards in his chair.

The gunshot didn’t hurt Meg, but it surprised her enough that she couldn’t simply vanished from the room, giving Sam and Dean the chance to advance in on her. Meg opened her eyes and stared at them with pitch black eyes and her mouth distorted in a snarl of fury. In one fluid movement she was back on her feet and she lunged herself forwards towards Sam.

She was small, but she countered it with her supernatural strength. Her punch to the jaw unbalanced Sam, who fell backwards, hitting his head against the side of the desk. A splitting pain in his skull blinded him for a moment, but he clutched the knife in his hand and stood up…

“You take another step and your brother gets it, Sammy,” Meg threatened. She had her hand extended towards Dean, who was pinned against the wall and fighting in vain to free himself, his feet dangling useless over the floor.

“Meg…” Sam blinked several times, trying to recover his breath. “What are you doing? You’re not a crossroads demon…”

“Desperate times call for desperate measures,” Meg said, with a shrug. “You wouldn’t understand it. You get to retire and live happily ever after in God’s green earth. Me? Well, thanks to you, a sixpenny tyrant took over Hell and I have nowhere to go. I’m just trying to make a living here.”

“By buying souls?”

“It’s the only thing that has any real value,” Meg replied. “Now, it has been lovely catching up with you, but I think it’s time I finally break both your necks…”

Her statement was interrupted when Gabriel jumped her from behind. That was enough to distract her into releasing Dean, who collapsed on the floor with a thud. Meg wrestled against Gabriel’s grasp, throwing her head back and trying to hit him, but Gabriel not only withstood the hit, but managed to raise his blade up to her throat.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you, hun,” he warned her.

Meg let out a groan of frustration, but she sagged in Gabriel’s arm, staring daggers in Sam’s direction.

It was way too easy.

Sam kept thinking about it as they drew the Devil’s Trap on the floor. Meg didn’t try to fight or steal the blade from Gabriel. She just remained quietly defiant, glaring at them, but not saying a word as they tied pushed her inside the Trap and tied her down to the chair.

It was too easy. Sam didn’t trust her, but unless she did something, the most they could was restrain her. Gabriel needed her alive. He couldn’t help but feeling, however, that there was another show about to drop.

“Are you going to tell us where you stashed the weapons you stole?” Gabriel asked her.

“Say ‘please’,” she replied, with a venomous smile.

So that was as far as “easy” went. Sam still wasn’t convinced that Meg wasn’t hiding a card up her sleeve, but for now, there was no much else they could do.

Except interrogate Travis Hawkins, of course.

The man had passed out behind his desk. It took some slaps to the face and a glass of water poured directly into his mouth to get him to wake up, but he finally came to with a gasp. He stared at them with wide, terrified eyes and tried to scurry away.

“Please!” he said. “Don’t hurt me! I didn’t know!”

Dean crouched against him, his nostrils flaring.

“We don’t want to hurt you, you pathetic coward,” he told him. “We want to know where the Staff is.”

Travis Hawkins swallowed hard, still staring at them in fear. His lips trembled as he opened his mouth and closed it again, stuttering words that made no sense.

“Hey!” Dean shouted, grabbing him by the lapels of his shirt and forcing him to look at them. He pulled up his gun and pointed it directly at Hawking. “Answer us, dammit!”

“Dean!” Sam shouted, but the threat worked:

“It’s in the safe in my room!” he screamed. “Please, please, just… don’t hurt me!”

That was rich coming from a man that had killed at least three people for power and money, but Sam refrained from saying that.

“You guys go get it,” Gabriel instructed them. “I’m going to stay here with Princess Brimstone and try to see if she says something useful.”

“Eat me,” Meg replied, rolling her eyes.

“You sure you’ll be okay?” Sam asked, worried.

Gabriel made a dismissive gesture with his hand.

“It’s just a black-eyed demon, Sam. I can handle it.”

Sam threw one last glance at him, and then nodded. He followed Hawkins, who was still stuttering nervously, and Dean, still holding the gun up.

“P-Please,” Hawkins begged again and Sam could have almost swear he was crying. “I was just trying to… get ahead. I have so many good ideas… they were never going to let me…”

“We don’t care,” Dean interrupted him. His tone was cutting and cold. “As far as we’re concerned, you’re nothing but an asshole and a murderer. So just shut up.”

Travis did shut up, though he kept sobbing and stuttering as they reached the end of the hallway and entered a bedroom decorated with the same tackiness as everything else in the house seemed to be: a king-sized bed with an animal print spread on it and an ugly picture of dead nature. Hawkins pulled it down with trembling fingers and slowly inserted the numbers in the pad. The safe clicked opened.

“H-here it is,” he said, pulling the Staff out.

At first glance, it looked like nothing but a piece of polished wood. But knowing exactly what it could do, Sam couldn’t blame Dean for taking the safety off his gun.

“Easy, now,” he threatened him.

Hawkins extended the Staff to Sam.

“Take it. The damn thing’s not worth my soul,” he said. As soon as his hands were free, he searched inside his pockets and took out a handkerchief to wipe his sweaty brow. “Are you going to make her go away too?”

“Maybe,” Dean said.

Hawkins nodded with relief.

“What about her partner?”

And there it was: the other shoe.

“What partner?” he asked.

“The handsome guy in the trench coat,” Hawkins said. “I don’t know if he’s a demon like her or not, but he freaks me out even more than she does.”

He hadn’t even finished saying those words when there was a flash of lightning and thunder roaring outside on what had been, up until that point, a perfectly clear night. The light bulb above their head started flickering and giving off sparks.

“We have to warn Gabriel,” Sam said, quickly. “And we have to get him to safety.”

Dean stared at Hawkins, his finger twitching in the trigger…

“Dean!” Sam called him again.

Dean clenched his jaw.

“Alright. Get in the closet,” he ordered him. “And whatever you hear, don’t come out. I can’t guarantee you’ll survive it.”

Hawkins grew pale, as if he was about to pass out again, but he obediently stepped inside the closet and said nothing while the brothers closed and secured the door by crossing the Staff over it.

“What is wrong with you?” Sam asked, turning towards Dean. “We don’t threaten possible victims, Dean!”

“He’s not a victim,” Dean argued. Another thunder punctuated his words, and as much as it pained Sam, they were going to have this conversation for later. Sam took out Ruby’s knife again.

“Let’s go,” he said.

They had only just stepped on the hallway again when the lights flickered when last time and then died out. The brothers waited out for their eyes to get used to the shadows as the wind outside started growing and growing, shaking the windows’ glass.

“Whoever this demon is, he’s a bad motherfucker,” Dean commented.

The home office’s door opened and Gabriel stepped out, his blade glowing dimly in the gathering darkness.

“What…?” he started, but didn’t get to finish.

A shattering in the first floor distracted them. Meg’s cackle echoed down the hall.

“Oh, you’ve really done it this time, boys!” she mocked them.

Dean didn’t wait to check his plans with either Sam or Gabriel. He just headed towards the stairs without looking back, armed only with his gun, which would amount to exactly nothing against a demon, especially if it was a powerful one. Sam gritted his teeth and ran behind him.

The lobby was empty. The big picture window was broken, the shards spread through the carpet and the curtains flapped in the rising wind. The brothers approached it, trying to determine where the demon had gone, while Gabriel stood back at the stair’s end, his eyes shifting on one side and the other.

“Sam!” he screamed.

Meg’s partner was too fast. He jumped on top and they rolled on the floor on top of the shards. A deafening shot echoed throughout the room, but the demon on top of him didn’t even notice as he gripped Sam’s wrist so hard his bones creaked. Sam cried out in pain and let go of Ruby’s knife. The demon grabbed it, his trench coat flailing as he stood up and raised his hand: Dean flew across the room, his gun clattering on the floor. Another shot went off, but the demon didn’t care as he stood up and turned around, just in time to block the blow of Gabriel’s blade with… his own angel blade.

_Where the hell had he got that?_

Both stopped at the same time. Another flash lit up the room, illuminated Gabriel’s features: his jaw was slack and his eyes opened wide in confusion.

“You’re dead,” he muttered.

“Not quite,” the demon answered, in a deep, gravelly voice.

The entire mansion trembled suddenly and a dust of debris fell on them. Sam raised his eyes: a large cracked was growing on the ceiling… right under Hawkins’ home office where Meg was trapped.

They had to hurry or soon they would have two demons in their hands.

He rolled on his stomach and reached for Ruby’s knife just as Gabriel and Meg’s partner began fighting again, their movements too fast to follow them.

The house shook once more, harder this time, as if a giant was trying to rip it out from its very foundations. The chandelier above them clattered and Sam barely had time to run away from it as it come unhinged and crashed on the floor, creating a barrier right between him and where Dean was attempting to stand on the unstable floor.

But he’d ended up closer to where Gabriel and the demon in the trench coat were still fighting.

“You’re telling me you were helping her all this time?” Gabriel asked, stepping back after rejecting another hit.

They turned in a circle and the demon’s back was wide open to him. Sam sprang to his feet. He only had one chance. He leapt forwards and sank the knife on the demon’s neck, right on the jugular, all the way down to the hilt.

The demon stumbled backwards, surprise… but he didn’t fell. In fact, he blinked, as if he was confused more than hurt. Slowly, he raised his hand to the knife and pulled it out.

Not even a drop of blood came out of the wound.

“What the fuck…?” Sam whispered.

A clatter distracted them. On the other side of the room, Meg and Dean were fighting now, in a tight, dangerous embrace. Dean was apparently attempting to strangle her, but Meg immediately grabbed him by the shoulders and kneed him on groin so hard that Dean fell to his knees. With another punch, Meg threw him on the ground. She leaned down to pick up something from the floor: a large, sharp shard of glass that she held above her head, ready to strike…

“No!” Sam screamed. It took him a second to realize that someone else had echoed that same word in unison with him.

Meg stopped, still holding the shard. Her eyes were pitch black again.

“You serious? You still want to try to talk to them? They’re never going to leave us alone!” she shouted angrily. “They’re never just going to let us be, Castiel!”

“What?” Sam repeated and exchanged a look with Gabriel. The archangel was paralyzed, apparently as perplexed as Sam himself.

Castiel shook his head.

“We have to try,” he insisted. “Please, my love. There will be no chance of peace if you kill a Winchester.”

Meg hesitated, the shard trembling in her hand as if she still planned to slash Dean’s throat with it. In the end, she huffed and threw it away.

Her and Castiel moved towards one another, like magnets being pulled together. Meg threw her arms around his neck at the same time Castiel wrapped her in his. Even before they kissed, it was dawning on Sam that he was looking at something impossible.

Castiel wasn’t a demon. He was an angel.

And he was Meg’s lover.

 

* * *

 

“Explain!” Gabriel demanded when he finally could speak again. “Now!”

Meg and Castiel stood away from them. Sam noticed that Castiel still had his angel blade in hand and that he had quietly handed Ruby’s knife to Meg. But neither of them had attempted to stop him when he ran towards Dean and helped him stood up.

“You’re dead!” Gabriel repeated. “We saw the marks and the blood in her cell! We thought she had killed you!”

“It’s called a trick, genius,” Meg said, rolling her eyes as if Gabriel’s confusion was annoying to her. “I thought you were sort of an expert in it, but I guess not everyone lives up to their reputation.”

“You faked your death!” Gabriel accused Castiel, ignoring Meg’s jab. “To run away with _her_?”

Castiel lowered his eyes, but his arm remained protectively around Meg’s waist.

“And you helped her break into the armory!” Gabriel continued, scandalized.

“We needed leverage,” Castiel explained. “We knew that as soon as we disappeared we were going to need something to… to negotiate. To keep us safe.”

“What is this?” Gabriel muttered, running his fingers through his hair as if he couldn’t quite process what was going on. “What in Dad’s name…? Is she mind-controlling you? Are you mind-controlling my brother?” he asked, staring at Meg.

Castiel instinctively stood in front of her.

“No. She’s not controlling me. I’m doing this… out of my own free will.”

As those words came out of his mouth, a soft smile appeared on his lips.

“Like you, brother,” he added.

“No, don’t you dare compare…”

“It was your love for lesser creatures that inspired you to go against the mandate of the Apocalypse,” Castiel said. “It was your ability to see them as equally important, as worthy, that made you rebel against what had been prophesized for so long.”

Gabriel’s eyes travel towards Sam, but he glanced away so quickly that Sam thought he’d almost imagine it.

“That is a _very_ different thing!”

“In what way?”

“In wh-? Are you kidding me?!” Gabriel exclaimed. “Your girlfriend is a demon bitch!”

“Careful, featherbrains,” Meg warned him, brandishing Ruby’s knife as if it would do more against Gabriel than it had done against Castiel. “Cas here thinks we should respect you and your human pets. I’m not so convinced. You might be a big shot in Heaven, but if you’re dumb enough not to see what’s going on underneath your own nose…”

“And what is that supposed to mean, exactly?” Gabriel demanded to know.

Castiel and Meg exchanged a look. It was only a moment, but Sam had the feeling that they had missed out an entire conversation between the two of them.

“We will tell you everything we know,” he promised. “Rumors we have heard. We… we will even give back the weapons we stole. Yes, we will,” he added and quickly turned to look at Meg. The demon had obviously been about to protest, and she slowly closed her mouth again. “But you have to promise that you will let us go afterwards.”

“Let you go,” Gabriel repeated with a huff. “Let you go where, exactly?”

“Meg still has some… contacts,” Castiel said. “We were trying to collect the souls to pay them for their help to make us disappear. But we will find another way.”

“Why, though? I mean, how much can you possibly care for this guy?” she said, pointing at the ceiling to remind them of Hawkins. “He’s a killer. I only gave him a weapon. He’s probably going to Hell either way.”

“Meg, please,” Castiel sighed.

“I’m just saying.” Meg shrugged.

Castiel sighed softly, as if that was a conversation he’d had many times in the past and he still couldn’t get over.

“Why should we believe you?”

Sam turned to Dean. He had his arms crossed over his chest, and he was looking at them with that cold, calculating glance that was so unlike him.

“You cheated your brothers into thinking you were dead. And we know she’s a grade-A liar,” he pointed out.

“Oh, Dean, you say the sweetest things.” Meg smirked at him. “But I’m afraid I’m off the market these days.”

The strange thing was, Sam realized with a jolt, that she wasn’t lying about it. She had lied to them, of course, and she had lied to Hawkins. But watching her standing near Castiel, her finger intertwined with his on the hand he’d wrapped around her waist, it was plain to see that this was real. As real as it could be for a demon.

And who knew what she would do if they tried to separate her from Castiel?

As if he had read his mind, the angel added:

“Of course, you can choose to fight us. But I must warn you, brother, I am not… what’s the expression? Going quietly back to Heaven.”

“And if you kill us, you’re not getting your toys back,” Meg pointed out.

That wasn’t an unfair point.

“Gabriel,” Sam called him. “We should listen to them.”

Gabriel twisted his mouth. He obviously was of the same opinion as Dean that doing that was a mistake. But in the end, he nodded.

“You better make it worth my while.”

They sat on Hawkins kitchen, all weapons over the table in view of everybody, Meg and Castiel on one side, Gabriel and Sam on the other while Dean stood near the counter chugging the beer he had managed to find in the fridge. Sam wondered if his intentions were really to be close to the knives, but he tried not to think about that too much.

“Well, I’m all ears,” Gabriel said.

Castiel looked at Meg, who seemed reluctant to talk to them.

“You do know who the new King of Hell is, right?” she started.

“Must have missed it in our copy of _Abominations Weekly_ ,” Dean said.

Meg ignored him.

“It’s your old pal, Crowley,” she said. “Ex-King of the Crossroads and Lilith’s boytoy. Though I’ll be fucked if I know what she saw in him.”

Sam was a little taken aback by this information. Just like with Meg, he hadn’t thought about Crowley, not since he’d handed them the Colt and healed Bobby. Gabriel, however, already must have known. He had mentioned treaties with Hell and the new King.

“So?” Gabriel asked.

“So, he’s a slimy bastard,” Meg said. “You think he’s going to respect something just because he put his signature in it? You’re complete idiots to deal with this guy.”

“Please, try not to insult my brothers, love,” Castiel requested, tiredly.

Meg leaned back on his chair and stretched her hand to touch Castiel’s, who immediately grabbed it. It was a friendly, familiar gesture. As if she had sat next to him in thousands of tables and it was just a given that she would hold his hand.

“He’s an expansionist,” Meg continued. “My contacts tell me he’s searching for something. A way to have more access to the power of souls.”

That made Gabriel perk up.

“You say he’s planning an invasion of Heaven?”

“Not even Crowley is that stupid.” Meg shook her head. “Lucifer with the entirety of the hordes of Hell backing him might have had a chance after defeating the angels on Earth. Crowley might have taken over the throne, but there are some demons who were only loyal to Lucifer, aren’t too happy with this regime and won’t follow him if he goes to war. The new king doesn’t have the power to go after Heaven because he’s barely keeping Hell together.” She made a pause. “But he is looking for a way into Purgatory.”

“Purgatory?” Sam repeated. It was the first time he heard of such a thing. He turned to Gabriel, who immediately explained:

“It’s where the souls of monsters go after handsome hunters such as yourself chop their heads off with machetes. And it contains some other… dangerous stuff that didn’t quite drown in the Flood.” Gabriel shifted in his seat, as if the memory of it made it uncomfortable. “It doesn’t have a ruler, per se, not in the way that Heaven or Hell do.”

“The souls inside it are, as you would say, for the taking,” Castiel said. “And if Crowley seizes them, then he would be powerful enough to control the dissent in his ranks… and to go after Heaven. Which would effectively restart the Apocalypse that you and the Winchesters stopped.”

“He wouldn’t dare,” Gabriel said, but the confidence in his voice was fake. Sam could tell easily. “For Dad’s sake, he helped us!”

“He helped you because it was convenient to him,” Meg said. “Now there’s a bigger fish to fry and he’s going to throw all of you under the bus. It’s his M.O.”

Gabriel narrowed his eyes at her with suspicion.

“Not to look at a gift horse in the mouth, but how can I know you’re not saying all of this because you’re mad he didn’t want you, specifically, in the prisoners’ exchange?”

Meg grinned at him. Somehow, her displaying all of her teeth made her look even more menacing.

“I was already planning my escape way before you offered me to the smarmy dick,” she admitted. “He didn’t want me because I was Azazel’s daughter and I could have started an uprising against him. The throne should have been mine, it’s true, but he can keep it. I have something better now.”

She didn’t look at Castiel, but Sam noticed her grip around the angel’s hand became tighter. Castiel immediately lifted up her hand to his lips and left a soft kiss right on her knuckles.

It would have been very tender if Sam hadn’t still been processing the entire fact that they were an angel and a demon. That was something that just didn’t make sense.

But at the same time… it sort of did. They had ripped up the pages of destiny and rewritten everything that was supposed to happen. The old rules didn’t apply anymore.

“There is something else, brother,” Castiel added, turning his attention back to Gabriel. “Crowley isn’t alone in his scheming. The rumors we have heard… they indicate he might have an inside man helping him.”

“An inside man where?”

Castiel made a pause. Despite he had full-on deflected and decided to run with someone who should have been his enemy, Sam supposed he probably still had some regards for his former home. His voice sounded pained when he answered:

“In Heaven.”

 

* * *

 

Dean was of the opinion they should stab the both of them as soon as they turned their backs, but Gabriel opposed that idea vehemently.

“It’s weird, I know,” he said. “But Castiel has always been kind of a weird dude. And if someone understands the need to run away from home with a chick, that would be me.”

“Is she even a hot chick?” Dean asked.

Gabriel shrugged. “She’s a demon.”

Dean paced around the wrecked living room. He looked more than ever like a wild animal in a cage.

“I don’t like it,” he concluded. “We let her loose, who knows what kind of trouble she’s going to bring? Sam, help me out here.”

Sam tapped his fingers against his leg, pensively and looked at Meg and Castiel. They were sitting with their heads very close to one another, whispering to one another. It was so odd, and yet…

“I’m with Gabriel. I think as long as they keep their word to return all the weapons, we should let them go.”

“Are you kidding me?!” Dean said, loud enough that Meg and Castiel heard him and raised their heads. Dean lowered his voice. “Are you telling me you trust… Megstiel?”

“I don’t know if I trust them, exactly,” Sam said. “It’s just… don’t think it’s worth pursuing them. If what Meg said about Hell is true, it might be a good idea to let them live. We'll have someone to keep us posted about what Crowley is planning and all that.”

“You do remember what happened last time you worked with a demon, right?”

Sam lowered his eyes. He had a point there. Gabriel, however, was undeterred.

“We’ve all worked with demons before, Dean-o. And besides, we wouldn’t be working with them. We’ll… be keeping them on the bench. Just in case.”

“Come on,” Dean muttered through gritted teeth. But he realized there was no point in arguing.

They walked them to the garden. Outside, the sky was a pale shade of blue as the sun began to rise.

Meg stopped and turned to the Winchesters.

“Really thought I’d have to fight you to the death there, boys,” she told them. “You’ve gone soft.”

“We can still kill you, if you want,” Dean threatened her. “Don’t think we haven’t noticed you’re taking that poor sucker for a ride to keep yourself safe.”

“Well, aren’t you just a romantic at heart?” Meg rolled her eyes. But then her expression changed: it became softer somehow, more reflexive: “I don’t expect you to get it. Sometimes… things start one way and end up another. You can believe whatever you want about me and him. It’s not like I care. I know what’s real.”

Dean scoffed, skeptical still. Sam, however, felt inclined to believe her. He didn’t know exactly why. Perhaps because, even when everything she had done, even as misguided as her loyalties had been before, Meg had always been earnest about whom she decided to give her devotion to. That was something Sam could understand.

She stalked away to where Castiel and Gabriel were exchanging some words. Castiel searched for something inside his trench coat.

“The weapons are kept in a storage unit. The direction is here,” he said, taking out a key chain and handing it to Gabriel. “I wouldn’t go by myself if I were you, brother. We’ve made sure the place is inaccessible for angels.”

“You had this all planned, didn’t you?” Gabriel asked, squinting at Castiel. The other angel smiled apologetically, but he still wrapped an arm around Meg’s waist as soon as she stood nearer to him.

“With any luck, this will be the last you hear of us.”

“But then, you boys fucked up the script and we’re all scrambling to improvise now,” Meg added. “So, who knows?”

“If you cause any more trouble, we’re going to come after you again,” Sam pointed out.

“I’m aware.” She smirked at them. “I look forwards to the day.”

She turned towards Castiel to give him a kiss on the cheek. There was a soft flutter of wings and in the blink of an eye, they were both gone.

Dean shook his head disapprovingly.

“I still think we’re going to live to regret that.”

“Maybe,” Sam admitted. “Are you going to need help getting the weapons back, Gabriel?”

Gabriel didn’t answered. He stared at the key in his hand, pensively.

“Gabe,” Sam called him and put a hand on his shoulder. The archangel startled and turned to him.

There was something undecipherable in his golden eyes. A light so smoldering and intense that took Sam by surprise and made him step back. Once again he was reminded of what Gabriel really was. Not just his goofy friend, not just their ally, but a being so inconceivable old that Sam and all other humans must look like roaches to him.

Gabriel blinked and the moment passed.

“Yeah. Yeah, I think you boys need to come with me,” he said. His boys sounded softer, as if he wasn’t even paying attentions to the words that came out of it. As he spoke, however, they recovered their usual bounce: “But not today. You need to rest. So maybe go do that and we’ll deal with this weapons issue tomorrow. I’m go gonna get Hawkins and the Staff.”

“Okay,” Sam started. “Are you…?”

But he didn’t get to complete the question. Gabriel had disappeared.

“What’s his problem?” Dean asked.

“I don’t know,” Sam admitted. “Castiel said the rumor was that there was a Crowley spy in Heaven.”

“So?”

“So they’re his family, Dean,” Sam pointed out, annoyed. “I’m sure he’s not fond of the idea of someone he trusts betraying him.”

Dean said nothing to this. He simply stood on the garden, huffing as if he couldn’t be bothered to care about Gabriel’s issues.

“What’s the matter with you?” Sam asked, frowning.

“Nothing’s the matter with me,” Dean snapped back. “You wanna go for breakfast? I’m starving.”

He strode towards the Impala without waiting for Sam to follow him. Sam sighed and rubbed his temples. He was tired and he couldn’t think about Dean and Gabriel too much. Breakfast sounded like a good idea. Then he would call Sarah to let him know that he was going to be gone for a couple days more.

 

* * *

 

Gabriel showed up next to the isolated lake and waited, tapping his foot impatiently. He didn’t like that Crowley thought he was the kind of person that could be kept waiting. The King of Hell was taking too many liberties and Gabriel wasn’t sure how much longer they were going to be able to keep waiting together.

If they could at all.

“You’re certainly one for choosing some scenic views,” Crowley’s soft voice said behind him.

Gabriel turned towards him. He preferred to keep both eyes on the King of Hell at all times. He was wearing a suit with a red flower in his lapel, as usual, but the elegance in which he had dressed his meatsuit didn’t change what he was underneath. Meg had been absolutely right in her assessment that he was a slippery bastard.

But for the time being, he was a _necessary_ slippery bastard.

“I have news about the weapons,” the archangel said.

He dangled the keychain in front of Crowley, but pulled the away when he saw the way the demon’s beady eyes lit up eagerly and his hand stretched towards it. Crowley controlled himself and put his hand back on his back.

“Impressive,” he admitted. “And dear old Meg?”

“She won’t be a problem to you anymore.”

He wasn’t lying, or at least he hoped he wasn’t. If Meg had been sincere in her statement that she wouldn’t come from the throne, the Crowley didn’t need to know that Gabriel had let her go. It wasn’t like he expected the King to be honest with him one hundred percent of the time anyway.

Crowley nodded.

“Very well.”

“She said some… interesting things before I was done with her,” Gabriel said. “Something about discontent among Lucifer loyalists?”

“She was always a lying whore,” Crowley said. A little too quickly, a little too forceful. As if he was desperate for Gabriel to believe him.

“Fergus, may I remind you we have a mutually assured destruction deal going on here?” the archangel said. “If things go wrong on my side, they go wrong on yours too. And just because you turned out to be right about Raphael planning to restart the Apocalypse doesn’t mean I’m going to believe every single thing that comes out of your ugly mouth.”

Crowley’s face remained unreadable. He smiled at Gabriel, but there was tension on the edge of his lips.

“Fine. There has been some… unrest,” he confessed. “But I’m dealing with it.”

“You better. And tell your lackeys to tone down their gossiping,” Gabriel added. “If there are any other rumors that there’s an angel working alongside Hell, then we can kiss the secret part of our secret operation goodbye.”

Crowley glared at him. He obviously didn’t like receiving orders in that manner, but there wasn’t much he could say. Gabriel was right and they both knew it.

“Very well,” Crowley conceded. “But I’m not the only one who needs to keep better tabs on who they speak.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“I had people keeping watch in that little town where the plagues were all the rage,” Crowley said. “Well, until my informants saw that the Winchesters showed up and per our deal, decided to skip and leave them alone. And now you show up here with the keys to the stolen weaponry and news of Meg’s demise?” The satisfaction in Crowley’s smile was so disgusting Gabriel had to contain a heave. “Am I wrong to assume you have fallen back on old habits?”

Gabriel tried to come up with an excuse. He took a second too long.

“Listen, I don’t really care what you do with your pets,” Crowley told him. “I agreed to use Dean because the boy is a good little soldier and has tunnel vision. But Sam? Sam is the smart one. He can put two and two together…”

“You will leave Sam alone, do you understand?” Gabriel said, lowering his voice.

“Oh, I will leave him alone,” Crowley promised. “And I suggest you do the same. I don’t want to jeopardize everything we’re working towards just because you regret not sweeping darling Sam off his feet when you had the chance and now you can’t keep away from him…”

“Shut up,” Gabriel ordered him. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Crowley lifted up his chin, as if he was thinking about continued talking. But he must have realized nothing pretty would come off it.

“Have it your way,” he said in the end. He disappeared before Gabriel could dismiss him.

Gabriel turned around and punched the nearest tree to release some of his frustration. The bark gave under his fist and the tree broke in half and fell on the mossy ground.

Then he began laughing.

A demon. Castiel had run away with a demon, of all things. Little sweet Castiel, who had been put in charge of the prisoners precisely because he had a bad habit of getting too close to humans to work with them.

Gabriel figured he couldn’t blame him, though. He too had some errors of judgment under his belt.

It seemed like he was lying to everyone those days: Raphael, Castiel, Crowley. Even Sam. But it was all for a good cause. He had to keep that in mind.

With a sigh, Gabriel extended his wings to go back to Haven.

“Dad, forgive me,” he muttered. “I’m doing this so it won’t all be in vain.”

A moment later, the place where he had been standing was empty and nothing but the breeze disturbed the trees.


End file.
